Only during the June rainy season did one notice how many hydrangea bushes there were in the Ueno neighborhood. Normally they were invisible, tucked into corners or overshadowed by more imposing greenery. But now, against the backdrop of wooden houses sodden black from the rain and the vibrant green of surrounding foliage, the clusters of pink and blue and lavender glowed with an eerie intensity. Their litmus hues leapt out at Mrs. Nishimura’s eye as she walked through the lanes beneath her umbrella.
She was coming home from choir practice. Choir always left her with a euphoric afterglow. It was only when she sang, her voice cleaving the air in powerful arcs of sound, that she felt something rising up within her that was equal to any glory the world could offer. Today they had practiced “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” for an upcoming concert, and its inspired strains had echoed through her head during the bus ride home.
Now that melody faded as she attuned herself to the outdoor world: the intimate hush of the lanes, the somnolent drip, drip, drip as light rain made pinpricks of sound on the umbrella and on the surrounding foliage. Bach’s grand surges didn’t fit, somehow, with the peaceful domesticity of these lanes. Mrs. Nishimura was content to leave him behind in the practice hall.
As she breathed in the warm, earthy smells of wet wood and moss, a more fitting melody stole through her head-a child’s ditty synonymous with rainy days. It was about your mother waiting for you after school with an extra umbrella because it was unexpectedly raining. She hummed it under her breath: pichi pichi chapu chapu (that was the sound of splashing water), lan lan lan.
It was a catchy tune in its own way, and just as hard to get out of her head. It was from a past time, a past generation. The lyrics mentioned janome-traditional umbrellas made of heavy oiled paper-which conjured up old-fashioned images of mother and child walking home past frogs croaking in the rice paddies. But certain things never changed: even in Mrs. Nishimura’s youth, whenever it rained unexpectedly there had been a cluster of Ueno mothers standing outside the school gate, holding plastic umbrellas for their children. She remembered that split-second moment of concern, shared by all her classmates: Did my mother come? But she had never truly worried, for her mother was there each and every time.
When her own daughters were small, Mrs. Nishimura, too, had waited outside their school gate (umbrellas with pictures of Ultraman and Lion Man were popular with the boys; for the girls, manga heroines such as ballerinas or stewardesses). As they walked home she had sung the rainy-day song to them, just as her own mother had sung it to her. They paused often to inspect the hydrangea bushes: as small children all knew, their broad leaves attracted snails when it rained.
Ara ara, the song went, see that poor child soaking wet, crying under the willow tree. I’ll give her my umbrella, Mother, and you can shield me under yours…
Ever since learning of her own adoption, she had identified strongly with that abandoned child under the willow tree. But oddly, it hadn’t taken away from her memories of early childhood. That feeling of being safe and cared for was still clear in her mind-of walking beside her mother and looking out at a wet, dreary world from beneath the tinted shade of a red umbrella. She still had a child’s distorted image of the rainy lanes, surreally barren of anything but the pink and blue hydrangea blooms that had pierced her young mind with the beauty of their colors.
She approached the snack shop. Mrs. Yagi, clad in her work apron, was standing under the awning and counting out change to a tall man pocketing a pack of cigarettes. The shopkeeper gave a quarter-bow in her direction, and Mrs. Nishimura returned it with a smile without breaking stride.
Before turning into the lane, she passed the Kobayashis’ long wooden wall with the hinged vendor door that opened out onto the street. Nowadays no one used these doors, with their uncomfortably low lintels, except to put out trash on collection days.
Behind this wall was the Kobayashis’ kitchen. Every so often, if Mrs. Nishimura walked very close along the narrow cement ditch, she could hear the faint thuds of a cleaver against the cutting board. As a child, playing here on the street, she and her playmates had sniffed appreciatively as unfamiliar smells wafted out into the lane: Chinese aromas of garlic or ground peanuts, a whiff of Western tomato sauce. Back then, before the modernization of Kyoto, such dishes had been redolent of the exotic. Mrs. Kobayashi’s ingredients were common enough-she shopped at the open-air market just like everyone else-but she combined them in unusual ways. “She grew up in a port city,” the neighbor women said. “She has high-level tastes, that one.”
Mrs. Nishimura turned the corner into the narrow lane, feeling instinctive relief at the familiar crunch of gravel under her feet. For as long as she could remember, this k’sha k’sha sound had signaled home.
She paused before the Kobayashis’ kitchen door. She had been planning to ask Mrs. Kobayashi a question. The Asaki household was replacing their hallway lights; would Mrs. Kobayashi like to add her order to theirs and save herself the hassle of carrying those long, unwieldy tubes? Mr. Nishimura could install them at the same time, and then old Mr. Kobayashi wouldn’t have to use a stepladder.
But on this overcast day there was no glow of electricity behind the frosted glass panels. This meant Mrs. Kobayashi wasn’t in the kitchen or even the dining room. She must be in one of the formal rooms beyond.
Mrs. Nishimura hesitated. There was an unwritten rule among Ueno housewives: it was permissible to drop in briefly, unannounced, if the lady of the house was in the kitchen. Domestic chores did not count as private time. But if the housewife had climbed up into the house proper, it would be inconsiderate to barge in.
She would go home, then, and telephone instead.
Almost three years had passed since Mrs. Rexford’s death, and life on this lane was back to normal. Mrs. Kobayashi’s health was greatly improved. It had taken time, but those skittering lights in her eyes had disappeared and she no longer sat down at odd times to rest. “Sometimes,” she told people, “it feels like she’s still alive in America somewhere.”
Mrs. Nishimura, too, was back to normal. She occasionally recalled, with a cringe of embarrassment, her botched overture in the vestibule. But mostly it was as if it had never happened. After all, the older woman didn’t seem to remember; there had been no hint of awkwardness, not even a slight distance. Maybe she hadn’t heard it. So, while Mrs. Nishimura hadn’t exactly forgotten, the hurt and resentment had faded from her day-to-day thoughts.
After all, such feelings were nothing new. For much of her life they had slid in and out of her mind like slow, dark fish, often disappearing for months at a time. But they never broke the surface; they were nothing like those hungry koi one saw in traditional restaurant gardens, the kind that erupted from the water with mouths gaping and hard bodies sticking straight up into the air. No, her fish were a quieter sort. They were bottom dwellers; they made no sudden moves. In rare moments, when things were slow, she let them rise up and circle about. But most of the time, there were better things to do and she went on about her business.
“Do you ever get angry?” her best friend in college had asked. She was the only person outside her family with whom she had discussed her adoption.
“Yes…,” young Masako had replied thoughtfully, “but not in the way you think. Not in a way that’s really personal.”
“Not personal? Against the mother who gave you up?”
“It’s like I have two versions of her,” she had said. “There’s the one in my head and there’s the actual woman who lives down the lane. The one in my head is who I get mad at or sentimental about. I talk to her in my head sometimes. But it doesn’t really count, because it’s almost like she’s imaginary.”
The truth was that Mrs. Nishimura felt physically incapable of the kind of anger she had seen in her big sister. She had seen Yoko stand up to bullies and back them down. Where did that intensity come from, that overpowering rage that blotted out everything else? It simply wasn’t in her. Besides, her own situation didn’t warrant it. Or did it? She was too close to have perspective. She sometimes wondered if her reactions were normal; this was another dark secret that she kept to herself.
But today, such thoughts were the last thing on her mind. Still humming-pichi pichi chapu chapu-she reached her own house and rolled open the slatted gate.
The mind is mysterious. Sometimes, when people feel buoyant and their insecurities are farthest from their minds, their guard goes down and they are even more susceptible.
In Mrs. Nishimura’s case, singing had a lot to do with it. She had joined this municipal choir only a few months ago. She had a rich, strong alto-all the Kobayashi daughters were blessed with good voices-but she had never done much with it. For a year or two, when her girls were small, she had sung in a short-lived choir consisting of fellow mothers on the PTA committee. Lately, with Momoko about to leave for college and Yashiko not far behind, she had felt a nameless yearning to sing again. On a whim she auditioned for Akimichi, a female choir known for its high standards. She told no one; she was embarrassed by her own audacity. But luckily there was an opening for a second alto and she was accepted-on the condition that she work hard to catch up.
The practices were rigorous, nothing like the PTA chorus in which the housewives had pleasantly passed the time. This choir director made them repeat, and repeat, and repeat a note until they got it right. Such intensity of effort did not allow for holding back, for being self-conscious. Soon Mrs. Nishimura forgot herself in the process of becoming a conduit for something larger than herself, something pure and exhilarating and rich and joyful that surged through her and dislodged tiny fragments that stayed swirling in suspension for hours afterward. With this constant outpouring of emotion, something within her began to shift. There was an imperceptible loosening of that airtight seal that had surrounded her feelings.
It was a subtle disequilibrium of which she was unaware. Now, still dressed in her outdoor clothes, Mrs. Nishimura stood before the telephone alcove in the dim hallway. Her lungs still enlarged from singing, she dialed the Kobayashis’ number.
“We’re all set for lights,” Mrs. Kobayashi told her. “We just replaced them a few months back. But thank you, it’s kind of you to ask.”
“Soh? You already replaced them?”
“We had Teinosuke do it while he was here.”
“Ah, well, that’s fine then,” said Mrs. Nishimura. “I just thought I’d ask.”
And it was fine. Truly…although there was just the slightest disappointment that Mrs. Kobayashi hadn’t made a similar offer to them. But that was silly. Mrs. Nishimura preferred not to indulge in petty thoughts.
But this little pang-which should have been no more than a pinprick, or at worst a vague sadness soon muffled on impact-shot past its proper stopping point with a force that alarmed her.
“I thought I heard your footsteps on the gravel a minute ago,” said the older woman. “Did you just get back from somewhere?”
“I was at choir practice. Remember? I have choir every Tuesday.” That pang was building in her chest, fierce and forlorn and extravagant. She vaguely recognized this sensation from choir: the gathering, the escalating, in preparation for a sublime launch of sound. But it had never happened in real life, and certainly not in anger.
“I tried to catch you, but you’d already turned the corner,” the older woman said. “Ne, I have a good cut of snapper I’ve been meaning to give you. The two of us can’t eat it all, and with this rainy season it won’t keep long.”
“You don’t have to bother,” Mrs. Nishimura said.
“What’s that?”
A small part of her mourned what she was about to say even before she said it.
“You never wanted me,” she whispered. No sooner had she said it than she was gripped with fear. Fumbling, she hung up the receiver before her mother could respond.
When Mrs. Nishimura gathered up her handbag from the telephone alcove, her hands were trembling. Her ears registered no sound, as if she were underwater.
What had she done? Who could have guessed that today, of all days, would mar the long tradition between the houses, so carefully and faithfully upheld over the years? And her gauche outburst was as distressing as the act itself. Over the phone! In between talk of light fixtures and fish! It was nothing like the secret fantasies of her childhood. She had pictured a formal, civilized exchange in a parlor, like the one with her adoptive mother. She had imagined herself speaking with dignity and (since this was fantasy) sharing her deepest feelings with eloquence. Instead she had struck and run, like an ill-mannered child.
Aaa, she was nothing like her sister Yoko.
But somewhere in the back of her mind-behind this feeling of shame, behind the dread of facing Mrs. Kobayashi again-there was a curious sense of…not anticipation exactly, but wonder. She had always believed there was nothing new to discover about herself.
How long she stood there she didn’t know. Her words seemed to echo in the empty hall as if she had screamed them. She hoped her mother, upstairs taking a nap, hadn’t heard.
From force of habit, she headed into the kitchen.
She was immediately aware of a dark outline behind the frosted glass panels of the kitchen door. Someone was outside on the doorstep, holding a dark umbrella. As Mrs. Nishimura paused, the figure tapped gently on the glass.
It was Mrs. Kobayashi.
Never, in Mrs. Nishimura’s lifetime, had she come to the back door.
In the split second before hurrying to open it, Mrs. Nishimura felt a relief so great that her knees almost gave way. Only then did she realize she had been waiting for this her whole life.
Her mother had come. This was what mattered, whatever might happen in the next few minutes. Her child had needed her and she had come, at the risk of meeting Mrs. Asaki and putting herself in an impossible position.
Mrs. Nishimura rolled open the door, and her mother’s eyes met hers with an expression so tender and regretful she had to look away. She noticed Mrs. Kobayashi wore socks on her feet and plastic gardening slippers; she must have been in a big hurry.
Reaching out her free hand, Mrs. Kobayashi drew her daughter outside onto the doorstep. Mrs. Nishimura stepped into a pair of plastic sandals lined up outside. She rolled the door shut behind them; even in this charged atmosphere, they were aware of Mrs. Asaki’s presence.
They stood beneath the hanging eaves, which extended far enough to shield them from the rain. Mrs. Kobayashi closed her umbrella and turned to face her.
“Ma-chan,” she said.
The rain was steady, not so much a force but a slow, languid dripping. The scent of loam rose up from the earth, mingling with the clean, sharp smells of ozone and greenery. It occurred to Mrs. Nishimura that smells were just as heady as music.
“I did a terrible thing to you.” Her mother’s voice had a quiet fervor, the same fervor with which she sometimes talked about Yoko. It surprised Mrs. Nishimura that she, too, could merit the same passion.
“I had a choice to make,” Mrs. Kobayashi said. “I chose wrongly. I’ve regretted it all my life.”
Mrs. Nishimura said nothing. She could not.
Mrs. Kobayashi began to talk-about wartime, about the occupation. She spoke quietly and steadily, not requiring her daughter to answer.
She talked of watching her grow up over the years. “Sometimes, when you were a little girl,” she said, “I’d hear you running past the house and you’d be sobbing, you’d call out, ‘Mama,’ and it took everything I had to stay put while you ran home to somebody else…”
With one part of her brain Mrs. Nishimura was taking in every word, knowing she would sift and resift through this for years to come.
But now that the moment had come, she found she couldn’t respond. That’s right, she kept thinking, you chose wrongly. War or no war, no one made you do it. It was your own choice. For the second time today, she felt a rise of anger.
But it wasn’t the sudden, wildfire anger of before. A legitimate space had been cleared, permission had been given, and now it was widening out, claiming its rightful territory with a sureness that felt like luxury. Her mother’s gentle remorse incited it even more, like an old-fashioned housewife coaxing the hearth with a paper fan and a bamboo blowpipe.
“At the time, I thought it was the right thing to do,” Mrs. Kobayashi was saying. Mrs. Nishimura had occasionally wondered if there was a private story behind that official version. Did people really offer up their children because of altruism? But of course they did. The history of Japan was one long story of sacrifice for the common good. Mrs. Nishimura understood duty. But a tiny part of her, the selfish part left over from childhood, still clung to the irrational question: How could you give me up? There was simply no answer for a question like that.
“I’ve always wanted to talk to you about it,” Mrs. Kobayashi said. “All these years, I’ve wanted to ask your forgiveness.”
It was unfair. Mrs. Nishimura wasn’t the one who had chosen wrongly. But now, at the peak of her resentment, she had to give absolution. She couldn’t do it. She wasn’t ready.
And now the full extent of her loss washed over her, all the self-pity she had never allowed herself. Like a wave, it crested. Her windpipe squeezed shut. She felt her face contort in the moment before tears came.
“Ma-chan, Ma-chan.” Her mother sounded as if she, too, was crying. Mrs. Nishimura couldn’t see; her eyeglasses had fogged up. She pulled them off with one hand and wiped at her eyes with the other. She could smell her own tears, a scent as primordial as the wet earth and rain.
She felt her mother stroking her back over and over, her hand warm through the thin cotton of her blouse. The comfort of it made her feel like crying forever. But eventually her sobs subsided. They stood side by side, gazing out at the rain falling on the hydrangea bushes and the sodden black planks of the fence.
“The whole time I was pregnant with Yoko, I was terrified.” Mrs. Kobayashi’s voice was faraway and musing. “But the second time, when I knew I was pregnant with you, I wasn’t afraid at all. I remember saying to your father when we left the doctor’s office, ‘I’m so happy. I’m really looking forward to having this one.’”
Mrs. Nishimura would treasure these words for years to come.
That night, Mrs. Kobayashi had a recurring nightmare. She was running lost through empty streets, searching in vain for the bomb shelter where everyone else was hiding. The streets were dilapidated, with ghostly forms floating in and out of slatted wooden doorways.
Mr. Kobayashi shook her awake, and as she came to consciousness she heard her own high-pitched moaning. “You were dreaming,” he said.
For a long time afterward, she lay listening to the rain splash against the cement floor of the laundry area. She thought of other nightmares she’d had over the years. More than once she had dreamed Shohei was outside in the night, standing silent in the lane. She couldn’t see him but she knew, as one does in dreams, that he was wearing a white suit like a Cuban musician. In her dream she would scream out, “Take me with you! Please! Don’t leave me here!”
Many times she had woken in the dark and realized, as if her brain was in slow motion, that she had given her child away.
Nighttime reminded her that life, at its core, was fraught with danger.
As soon as Kenji Kobayashi had returned from Manchuria, he had come to the Asaki house with his baby boy. Mrs. Kobayashi avoided his eager, hopeful eyes. She had always known, in a vaguely scornful way, that he carried a secret torch for her. But she felt no respect or admiration. He was a charming ne’er-do-well, a wild card, which appealed to some women but not to her. And he was short. She would never feel safe and protected again, being married to a man no taller than herself.
“Look at the little darling!” cooed Mrs. Asaki, cradling Teinosuke in her arms. “Look, Yo-chan. This is your baby brother.”
They sat down to a simple meal of noodles and broth, garnished with nothing but seven-spice, chopped chives from their garden, and three slices each of hard-boiled egg. “There’s no meat,” said Mrs. Asaki. “I’m sorry…”
“It tastes fine,” her brother insisted. “It tastes like Japan.” His voice choked up a little. “It’s good to be back. It’s so good to be back.”
Mr. Asaki cleared his throat irritably. “You should have worn something else,” he said. “We don’t need a constant reminder of our humiliation.” Everyone looked at Mr. Kobayashi’s belted khaki uniform with its stiff standing collar.
“Yes, sir.” The young man gave a half bow of apology. “Of course.”
They lingered over tea in the parlor. Little Yoko retreated to a corner, where she played quietly with the flat Chinese marbles her uncle had brought her.
Masako, who had been napping in a nest of floor cushions, began to stir. “Here,” said Mrs. Asaki, handing Teinosuke to her sister-in-law. She hurried over to pick up the baby girl, who was parting her tiny mouth in a yawn. “Two babies in the house!” she marveled to the group at the table. “What good fortune!”
Teinosuke was all sharp angles, with none of Masako’s plumpness. His oblong skull was bald but for a layer of fuzz. It was like holding a tiny, querulous old man. Mrs. Kobayashi set him free on the tatami matting and he crawled slowly under the table, like a dying insect.
“How precious!” said Mrs. Asaki. “He’s crawling!” She bounced her daughter-to-be on her lap, and Masako gurgled with joy. Mrs. Kobayashi hated to admit it, but her sister-in-law had a knack with babies. Her own child wouldn’t even miss her when she was gone.
“This is a good cigarette,” said Mr. Asaki, exhaling slowly.
“Have another, sir,” said Mr. Kobayashi. The men inhaled with deep satisfaction as if, now that the war was over, the worst was behind them.
Mrs. Kobayashi felt hysteria rising up within her.
“Yo-chan,” she said quietly, “come sit at the table.” The child came willingly, clutching her marbles in one hand and dragging her floor cushion behind her with the other. She hesitated as she approached, as if sensing the force field of her mother’s emotions.
“Put the cushion here,” said Mrs. Kobayashi, patting the floor beside her.
While everyone continued chatting, she rested her hand on her daughter’s back where no one could see. She ran her hand up and down over the small shoulder blades. The child smiled up at her, with a soft look in her eyes that was exactly like Shohei’s.
Mrs. Kobayashi’s hysteria subsided a little. I can do this, she thought. I’m getting through it, one minute at a time. She forced Masako out of her mind. Over and over she stroked this small person beside her, the only person whom it was safe to love.
Afterward, she and her husband-to-be went for a short stroll to Umeya Shrine. They chatted pleasantly of China ’s history, of people they knew in common, of the crayfish she and Mrs. Asaki had caught in the Kamo River. At one point he cleared his throat. “I know I can’t fill my brother’s shoes,” he said. “But I’ll do my best for you and Yoko.”
“I’m in your debt,” she murmured demurely.
He said nothing about the child she was giving up. For this she was grateful. During their long marriage, it would never come up between them.
Growing up by the sea, Mrs. Kobayashi had heard tales of tsunami as tall as skyscrapers, looming over villages for several moments before crashing. Life’s destructive force, said the grownups with hushed reverence. So heartless, it’s majestic.
That night she lay upstairs in the Asaki house with a sleeping child on either side. There was a faint roaring in her ears. She thought of villagers looking up at a wall of water, a split second before their annihilation.
This new life ahead, this feudal arrangement straight out of history books, had been beyond her ability to imagine. But now, for the first time, she saw how it would be. It would be ordinary. That was the shock of it. They would eat noodles and play with babies and talk about the new restaurant on the west side of town. No one would acknowledge the brutality of it. No one would even notice.
How would she survive? She had no inner resources; she had been rich and pampered all her life. What defined her? Nothing but frivolous memories from her old life. Picnic parties in the mountains with friends from work…the first time Shohei had asked her to tea…one lovely evening when she had glimpsed a star through a hole in her oiled paper umbrella…little Yoko taking her first steps, in a pair of pink kidskin shoes.
Sometimes, if she remembered hard enough, the old romance and possibility and joy bubbled up in her once more like ginger ale.
If this feeling was all she had left, then she would curl her whole being around it. Like a barnacle, she would hold tight while the tsunami crashed over her. I will protect my core, she thought. I will not become a hard, bitter woman.
After that rainy-day incident, what was the right way to act? There was no rule of etiquette to follow. It was as if a large stone had dropped into their pond, and no one dared move until the ripples died down.
Mrs. Nishimura and Mrs. Kobayashi occasionally crossed paths at the open-air market. They paused for a brief chat, as usual. But they never lingered, and they never walked home together.
Mrs. Nishimura went about the busy life of a housewife. Each morning she woke at sunrise to prepare breakfast before her husband’s long train commute. Her breakfasts were less elaborate than those at the Kobayashi house, but as long as Mr. Nishimura had his miso soup and his bowl of rice, he was happy. His underlings, he told her, ate hurriedly prepared, overly sweet breakfasts like toast and jam. “How could something like that possibly hit the spot?” he said, shaking his head and taking a deep, long swallow of broth. Mrs. Nishimura was touched by his awkward gratitude.
Afterward she saw him off, standing by the outer gate just as her own mother had done decades ago. But Mrs. Nishimura, being of a different generation, gave a cheerful wave instead of a formal bow.
Then it was time to head indoors for the second breakfast shift. Mrs. Asaki and the girls were not picky eaters, so she served modern fare like butter and toast or healthy-if nontraditional-fresh vegetables such as tomatoes and lettuce. There was plenty of hot rice left in the cooker. And if the leftover miso soup was slightly bitter after a second heating, no one minded. In fact, her mother ate most of it. Although Mrs. Asaki gamely ate the same dishes as her grandchildren, she supplemented them with old-fashioned condiments like miso soup or pickled vegetables.
One morning, a week after the incident with Mrs. Kobayashi, the household was finishing breakfast. Mrs. Nishimura was already in the kitchen, packing the girls’ lunches for school. After this many years, she had it down to a science. Half of each oblong container was packed with rice, still warm from the cooker and topped with an umeboshi in the center (this combination was called the Japanese flag). The remaining space was filled with an assortment of okazu, or side dishes. Today they consisted of sweetened egg loaf left over from breakfast, miniature sausages, sliced green peppers, sweet kabocha pumpkin stewed in soy sauce (from yesterday’s dinner), a dollop of expensive mattake mushroom preserves purchased by Mrs. Asaki, and sliced oranges. Each item was separated by strips of jagged green plastic that resembled grass. A perfectly fine lunch, though nothing like the lunches the Kobayashi children used to bring to school. Mrs. Nishimura still remembered those: shredded meat glistening with mouthwatering glaze and sprinkled with sesame seeds; cabbage leaves shaved as fine as baby hairs; homemade Chinese steamed buns, each with a different filling.
Once, many years ago, Mrs. Nishimura had vowed that her daughters, too, would have lunches like that. But she had no knack for the complex alchemy of flavors. She had to content herself with presentation, arranging the okazu with an eye for color and texture that rivaled her skill with cut flowers. The way she rationalized it, Mrs. Asaki’s expensive condiments made up for any shortfalls in flavor. As the widow of a government official, the old woman received a generous lifetime pension, most of which she spent on shopping sprees for the family. Their modest meals, budgeted on Mr. Nishimura’s salary, were mixed with disproportionately decadent treats such as liqueur-filled European chocolates or rustic tofu made from scratch by artisans.
More than once, in a moment of pettiness, Mrs. Nishimura had thought how much more helpful it would be if her mother just pitched in that extra money toward the household budget. Then she was ashamed of herself. They were already living in this house rent-free, and she knew how important it was for her mother to surprise and delight in her role as benefactor. Now that Mrs. Asaki was too tired for shopping sprees, she increasingly relied on money envelopes. Every so often she slipped one into someone’s hand, stuffed with bills earmarked for a specific indulgence: new bicycles for the girls or an afternoon of golf for the man of the house. But this was no longer done from a position of strength, and Mrs. Nishimura felt sad for her mother.
In the adjoining room, the girls had risen from the low table. She could hear them bustling about, shoving books into their schoolbags and throwing remarks back and forth. “Where’s my science report?” wailed Momoko. The girls’ voices grew loud and excited as they prepared to enter the real world.
Mrs. Asaki, still seated at the low table, was reprimanding someone about something. Mrs. Nishimura couldn’t make out the words, but she knew that tone of disapproval. Her heart sank. Why did her mother have to choose such inconvenient times? As it was, the girls had a short fuse when it came to her constant meddling. It wasn’t such a problem with Yashiko, but there had been several skirmishes with Momoko. “Let it go,” Mrs. Nishimura once told her daughter in private. “She just wants to feel like she’s still relevant in your life. I know she’s controlling, but that’s just her way. She’s not the type to beg.”
“Why are you so protective of her feelings?” Momoko had asked. It was a peculiar question, so peculiar that Mrs. Nishimura knew her daughter was referring to the adoption. She had almost forgotten that her daughter knew. The girl had shown so little interest at the time-as Mrs. Rexford had said, a grandmother wasn’t the same thing as a mother. And when Yashiko was told, several years after that, she had been more concerned about her upcoming field trip.
Now Momoko’s question opened up a strange new dimension between mother and daughter.
Mrs. Nishimura did not say what she felt. Her daughter, at seventeen, might be old enough to know the facts, even shrewd enough, in some misguided way, to draw conclusions that made her feel protective of her mother. But she lacked the life experience to understand gray areas. She couldn’t put herself in her grandmother’s place and know what a mother might feel, year after year, when her only child didn’t cleave to her-truly cleave, like Mrs. Kobayashi and Mrs. Rexford. It was something Mrs. Nishimura could never make up to her adoptive mother, no matter how much she tried. This remorse, perhaps more than she realized, had shaped her own choices in life. She had persuaded her husband to keep living in this house. She had kept a slight emotional distance from her girls so they wouldn’t be burdened with a sense of obligation. The less she expected of them, the less chance she would suffer her mother’s fate. But none of this was Momoko’s business. Not yet.
“Because,” she had replied, “she’s my mother, and I honor her. What a question.”
Now Mrs. Nishimura slid the flat steel lunchboxes into their embroidered bags. Hoping to forestall any bickering, she hurried out to the informal dining area.
“Here you are,” she said a little breathlessly, holding out the boxes to the girls. “Go now, go. You’re going to be late.”
“Masako, take a look at this.” Mrs. Asaki’s face was grave with disapproval. She gestured to the girls’ buckled canvas bookbags, the wide straps of which were slung across their navy jacket uniforms. “The material is starting to fray. Girls, why can’t you be more careful with your possessions?”
“Everyone’s bags are like that, Grandma,” said Yashiko cheerfully.
“When I was a young woman,” Mrs. Asaki said, “we never left the house unless our furoshiki cloths were in perfect condition. No loose threads. No tiny rips. It was a point of honor.”
“It’s not so bad, Mother, really,” said Mrs. Nishimura gently. “People nowadays don’t hold schoolbags to the same high standard as furoshiki. Besides, it’s just not economical to keep replacing them.”
“If you’d come to me,” said Mrs. Asaki, glancing at Momoko, “I would have bought you as many bags as you needed.”
Momoko held her tongue.
In less than a year, the girl would be leaving home. How quickly the time had gone! Mrs. Nishimura wished her child’s last year could have been more carefree. It occurred to her that in all these years of keeping the peace, of avoiding conflict and assuaging her private guilt, she had never stood up for her daughters and her husband.
“Girls!” she cried. “You’ll be late for school! Now go!” The girls fled down the hallway, calling out a formal “Itte kimasu!” in farewell. Stepping out into the hallway, she sent them off with a wave and the formal response: “Itte rasshai!” A few minutes later the heavy outer door rattled open, then shut. And the large house was silent.
Mrs. Nishimura returned to the dining area, where her mother sat at the low table swallowing the last of her miso soup. Drained, she sank down onto a floor cushion. Drawing out a clean pair of chopsticks from the container on the table, she reached over in a gesture of companionship and picked an eggplant pickle from her mother’s condiment dish.
“They have a nice clean taste, don’t they,” said Mrs. Asaki. Mrs. Nishimura nodded in agreement. She munched silently.
Later today she would catch the bus for choir practice. Her heart lifted at the thought. She wished she could feel this same kind of lift at home. She thought of the afternoon with Mrs. Kobayashi, when deep, powerful emotions had risen to the surface. She wanted to feel that again…
But first there was something she had to do. “The girls are at such an awkward age,” she began.
“Maa maa, they’re fine children!” said her mother brightly.
“A really awkward age,” Mrs. Nishimura repeated gently. “They’re so combustible. They don’t mean to be, but…Sometimes they just need a few minutes to themselves. You know, to let the steam out.” Something in her voice must have alerted Mrs. Asaki, for she looked up with a wary expression.
Mrs. Nishimura charged on, her mouth dry. “It might be best,” she said, “if you stayed upstairs during certain periods, just when they’re most easily provoked…” She forced herself to hold her gaze. In her mother’s eyes was an odd expression: not sadness, not hurt, but the weary relief of someone who has fought hard and lost. That look, Mrs. Nishimura thought, would haunt her to her dying day.
“Like maybe…the half hour right after breakfast,” she continued, choking a little. “And the half hour…right when the girls come home from school. It might be easier on everybody.”
Mrs. Asaki did not argue. “Soh, perhaps that’s best,” she agreed crisply. She rose to her feet and headed down the hall to do the laundry. No one expected her to do housework, but the old woman liked to be useful. On sunny days she often worked outdoors in one of the utility gardens, crouching over a plastic basin and scrubbing at the girls’ canvas sneakers with a toothbrush.
Alone in her kitchen, Mrs. Nishimura began washing the breakfast dishes. It took several minutes for her mind to fully grasp what she had done. Tiny tremors began running along her spine. How had she found the courage? She had to turn off the tap and take several deep breaths before she could go on.
The rainy season drew to a close, and each day the sun shone with ever-increasing strength. The intimate, sodden hush of the Ueno lanes gave way to a bright, bustling energy, a quickening. Sound traveled swiftly and clearly. Children whizzed past on bicycles; alley cats darted through the long, lush weeds.
One sunny morning, Mrs. Nishimura ran into Mrs. Kobayashi at the open-air market. Mrs. Nishimura was coming out of Shinsendo Bakery, a new establishment with Parisian awnings of red, white, and blue. Mrs. Kobayashi was approaching from the direction of the pickle store. She noticed her daughter and her face brightened in recognition. Mrs. Nishimura waited, admiring the older woman’s firm, pleasing stride as well as the peach gauze scarf tucked into the neckline of her blouse.
Stepping away from the bicycles and pedestrians, they exchanged small domestic updates. Momoko was still studying hard for her entrance exams. Sarah was interning at a financial consulting firm over the summer.
“In a week or so,” Mrs. Kobayashi said, “it’ll be hot enough to carry a parasol.” She tilted back her head to look at the sun. Mrs. Nishimura, too, lifted her face to the sky: a strong blue, with the classic cumulus clouds of early summer. They lingered, savoring the bright warmth and the communal lightheartedness of fellow shoppers stepping past in summer clothes.
Mrs. Kobayashi looked over at Mrs. Nishimura’s woven straw basket. “So,” she said in a playful tone, “what did you buy?” She had never asked such an intimate question before.
“Saa, let’s see…” Shyly, Mrs. Nishimura parted the handles of her basket. The action felt oddly familiar; she had watched her big sister do it many times. She peered into her own basket, just as her sister used to do.
With friendly curiosity, Mrs. Kobayashi leaned in to look. Among the usual items-garlic shoots, ginger, dried whitebait, fried tofu skin-were two loaves of Shinsendo bread and a kimono fashion magazine. Kimonos were Mrs. Nishimura’s weakness. In her free time she pored over the fat quarterly glossies, in which elegant women modeled seasonal kimonos with expressions of gentle tranquility.
“This bread’s for Mother,” Mrs. Nishimura explained. “She tears off little pieces and dips them in sugar. She calls it a nostalgic craving.”
Mrs. Kobayashi nodded. “That’s right. She told me a long time ago that it used to be a special treat when she was growing up in the country.” She opened her own string bag for inspection. “All I have so far is pickled seaweed.”
They were suddenly approached by a middle-aged woman from Mrs. Nishimura’s choir. “Nishimura-san!” The woman gave two half-bows of greeting, one for each person. “Do you live in this area too?”
Mrs. Nishimura and her mother automatically jerked away from each other, embarrassed to be caught peering into each other’s shopping baskets.
“Maa, Kimura-san, good morning! This is my…” But aunt felt wrong somehow, after all that had happened. She had a sudden impulse: How would it feel to stand here on this street, in the bright light of day, and tell the truth? It would make no difference to her choir mate.
“This,” she said, “is my mother, Haruko Kobayashi. And this is Mrs. Aki Kimura, who sings with me in the choir.” For a brief moment, time stood still.
“How do you do?” The choir woman bowed, unaware that anything was out of the ordinary.
Mrs. Kobayashi, usually such a fluent conversationalist, could not speak. She was deeply moved; it showed plainly on her face. But she had enough social presence to bow deeply, more deeply than the occasion required, in order to make up for her muteness.
Seeing her mother’s tremulous mouth, Mrs. Nishimura felt a piercing joy. And a sort of wonder: with a single word, she had turned all her years of yearning into a benediction for her mother.